Slide #207J
DESCRIPTION: It is in Spain, in the early days
of Moslem rule and in the heat of the Adoptionist controversy, that the
original of the first important group or school of Christian European maps
is to be found. The 8th century Spanish priest Beatus of Liebana has been
identified as the draughtsman of that plan which is the common source of
the maps of St. Sever, Turin, Ashburnham, and eleven others of the
earlier Middle Ages, executed at various times between at least the 10th
and 13th centuries, but all depending on a Spanish-Arabic prototype of the
8th century. This prototype, now lost, originally appeared anonymously as
a feature of a richly illustrated work, The Commentary of the Apocalypse
of St. John, which has been fixed by both internal and external criticism
to a date in or near the year 776 A.D. About 24 copies of the Commentary
have survived, with 14 different derivatives of the original Beatus world-picture.
The extant copies were originally classified by Professor Konrad Miller
into two main families: those of Osma and those belonging to the
Valcavado tradition. To the former family belong the examples of
1050 A.D. (Paris I/St. Sever), of 1050 (Paris II), of 1086
(Osma), and 1189 (Lisbon); and to the latter belong the maps
of 894/960 A.D. (Ashburnham/New York I/Valcavado), 970 (Valladolid),
the 10th century (Urgel), the Gerona map of 975, 1047 (Madrid),
1109 (London), the Turin map of 1150, 1220 (New York II),
the 12th-13th century (Manchester), and, finally, the Paris III
map of the 13th century. The parting of these two families probably took
place in the 9th century, and each appears to have been immediately derived
from certain lost intermediates of the 10th century, such as the two executed
in whole or part by Emeterius of Valcavado between 968 and 978 A.D. In all,
the best known are the large, usually oval/round, maps that can be traced
back to the prototype.
The original prototype map seems to have had a special purpose beyond simply
geographical. As a theologian, Beatus, no doubt, considered his map as primarily
illustrative of the Old and New Testaments, and of the spread of the Catholic
Faith. In addition to the scriptures, however, he also seems to have relied
upon two more temporal authorities: St. Isidore of Seville (Slide
#205) and a Roman province-map that bore some resemblance to the
Peutinger Table (Slide #120).
From his fellow Spanish theologian, Isidore, Beatus extracts almost verbatim
most of the longer inscriptions or legenda; it must not be forgotten, however,
that Isidore himself derived the material for much of his geographical dissertation
from the cosmographies of the later Roman period. On the other hand, no
earlier source is known for the Apostolic pictures used by Beatus, as far
as embodiment on a mappamundi is concerned; thus this detail may well be
a refinement supplied by Beatus himself. As to the Roman province-map, it
is from this map that Beatus and his copyists are thought to have derived
most of their 'secular geography'. The Caspian Sea, the Alexandrian Pharos,
the Nile inscription, and the desert where the Children of Isreal wandered
for forty years, as we have them in Beatus cartography (especially the St.
Sever map), are closely parallel to the representations of the Peutinger
Table.
According to Beazley and Miller, the relationship between these two works
is a key to all satisfactory study of the Spanish designs. This relationship
is further demonstrated in many other details such as in the names of the
peoples, cities, hills, and rivers of various countries, and in the Indian,
Syrian and African legends. In Gaul, not only are the same provinces named
and the same divisions made, but the more striking omissions of the Table
also occur in Beatus copies such as the St. Sever. Of the more than
130 names of towns that appear in the Beatus maps, more than ninety of them
agree with the Peutinger Table, and among these ninety parallels, all except
two of the important places are marked by pictures (usually houses); on
the other hand, the great vignettes at Rome, Constantinople and Antioch,
as seen in the Table, if existing in the works of Beatus, have undergone
transformation and reduction to a much lesser level. However, the Beatus
designs have nothing similar to the Roman Itineraries, or to the station-,
distance- and road-markings of the Table. Nor, of course, can the latter's
600 references to pagan temples and worships be found in these designs of
the 10th and subsequent centuries. But, in spite of whatever differences
exist, it appears that in the various works derived from the Spanish priest
of Liebana and Valcavado, there can be found a medieval reflection of one
or more cartographical works of the Old [Roman] Empire, free from all additions
of the Crusading period, and of inestimable value as a link between the
ancient and medieval worlds.
Additional significance of these 14 copies of Beatus lies in their relatively
high antiquity. Four of them certainly belong to the pre-Crusading period,
namely, St. Sever (a.k.a. Paris I ), Ashburnham, (a.k.a.
New York I ),Valladolid and Madrid; and, both from
their age and size, these plans are worthy of notice. There is scarcely
anything from Latin Christian cartography of so early a date; and the few
specimens which carry back to a still older time are considered mere sketches
by comparison, such as the Albi map of the 8th century A.D. (Slide
#206), and still earlier the sketches by Cosmas in the 6th century (Slide #202).
From the close similarity among all members of the Beatus Family, we can
therefore deduce with some certainty the character, not merely of the primitive
copies or intermediates, but also of the original itself, as drawn by the
"obscure hill-man and cave-dweller" in about 776 A.D. Of these
14 Beatus copies, seven are in the shape of an oval, somewhat inclining
to the oblong; the oldest one, Ashburnham,is a right-angled rectangle;
two of the latest, Turin and Paris III, are circular. What
was the original form? This question can only be answered by reviewing the
conditions under which it was drawn. All of the copies mentioned are drawn
on two pages; each page gives half of the map, or displays half of the known
world; and perhaps the oblong shape so often to be used is due merely to
the copyist lengthening the two halves of the circle in order to fill-up
his space and give the work more room. The height of the map is, of course,
the height of the accompanying manuscript in all instances, thus supporting
the theory that the elliptical form was circumstantial. The comparatively
short, upright axis, from top to bottom of the single page, represents the
longitude, or east-to-west prolongation of the earth; while the breadth,
the comparatively long horizontal axis reaching across the two pages, represents
the latitude, or north-to-south extension of the world. But neither in classical
antiquity, nor in the Middle Ages, do we meet with any geographer who believes
the latitudinal extension of the oikoumene to be greater than the longitudinal.
If this were so, then the very terms of longitude and latitude themselves
would have been disputed; but, on the contrary, they were always accepted.
Hence, it will not do to use the Beatus maps as proof that the ancient Orbis
picti, and especially the world map of Agrippa(Slide
#118), were oblong or elliptical.
It is probable that on the original Beatus map both the Four Sacred Rivers
and the Ancestors of Mankind were depicted, as on the 'family' of maps that
are associated with the Henry of Mainz map (Slides #215,
225, 226). The four rivers
of Paradise are a reference to Genesis ii, 11-14. The first three
rivers are usually identified with the Indus or Ganges, the Nile, and the
Tigris. Also, in the Beatus maps, there is no clear evidence of a dependence
on the T-O design so dominant during this period of cartography. The horizontal
line dividing Europe from Asia is pushed up towards the top, and thus deflected
from the actual middle (only on the Osma map is there an exception).
Beatus seems to have followed Isidore in his limiting of Africa to this
side of the Equator, this was also the practice of many of the classical
geographers such as Cicero, Pliny and Mela. Although he never displayed
it on his maps, Isidore conceded the probable existence of the southern
Antipodes, and, based upon a single sentence or two from his pen, all of
the Beatus copies, except the Paris III map of 1250, portrayed an
unknown continent south of Africa and the Indian Ocean. Even the Paris
III map, however, gives a relic of the 'Australian Continent' by indicating,
in a corner, the Skiapod, a shadow-footed monster whom the Osma map
of 1203 shows in the 'Southern Land'; this last was doubtless the original
position.
As to the appearance of the circumambient fish and boats, these fish occur
in every Beatus derivative except the Turin map; the boats are found on
the following copies: St. Sever, Ashburnham, Valladolid, Gerona,
and the Paris III map of the 13th century.
In the original Beatus design, as in most medieval maps, the Mare Rubrum
[Red Sea] appears to have been colored according to its name; but on the
Paris III map of 1250, the Valladolid, and the Ashburnham,
this tint is confined in a more modern sense to just the Arabian and Persian
Gulfs; both of these gulfs on the Ashburnham and Valladolid
examples are depicted rather like the symbols used for denoting mountains
than seas, in red color; in the Madrid map only the Arabian Gulf is red
in color; on the London copy the mountain-like appearance is even
more pronounced; on the Gerona, Turin and Paris III maps,
both gulfs are tinted with the traditional hue of the sea. On every Beatus
map Professor Miller recognizes a trace of the original legends in this
area. The Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea occur on the St.
Sever and on the Osma maps, but are wanting on all maps of the
Valcavado group. The distortion of the Mediterranean Sea fares no better
on these maps than on the other cartographical works of the early Middle
Ages.
The rivers of the world are more realistically portrayed on the best copies
of Beatus, the St. Sever and the Osma; on the other examples, and especially
on the Paris III map of 1250, the representation of the streams may
sometimes be used for restoring the probable contents of the original Beatus
map. Thus, apparently the original map contained no Spanish rivers, but
marked the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the
Jordan, the Nile with its delta, and certain affluents of the Caspian.
Where all of the copies agree, we may suppose that we are dealing with material
from the original Beatus prototype; and, fortunately, the coincidences between
and among all of the derivatives are so numerous that we can, from these
alone, form a pretty detailed picture of the fundamental draft. Therefore,
to summarize, the original Beatus design may have presented a schematically
drawn, basically oval map designed to promote the spread of the Christian
Faith and may have contained such features as a 'Southern Land' or Antipodes,
a circumfluent ocean filled with fish and possibly boats, colored seas with
some being depicted as mountains, at least the seven aforementioned rivers,
and an ample distribution of pictorial displays and textual legends. The
text of some of the longer legends gives a fairly good idea of the anthropological
outlook of Beatus, his copyists and the medieval European. The following
is such an example:
Albania, so called from the whiteness of its people, and color of their
hair, extended from the east, close to the Caspian Sea and the shore of
the Northern Ocean [into which the Caspian was believed to flow] to the
Maeotid Lakes [Sea of Azov], through desert regions where the dogs were
so strong and fierce that they could kill lions. Hyrcania, so called from
the Hyrcanian Wood [a confusion with the Hercinia Sylva of Germany] which
lay 'under Scythia', was full of tigers, panthers, and pards. Many races
lived here and in Scythia, among them cannibals and blood-drinkers. Scythia,
stretching from the extreme east and the Seric Ocean, to the Caspian Sea
(at the setting sun) and southward to the ridge of Caucasus, abounded in
gold and gems, in the best emeralds and in the most pure crystal; but all
of these treasures were guarded by Gryphons, and no man could approach thereunto.
Armenia, between the Taurus and the Caucasus, and between Cappadocia and
the Caspian, was divided into two parts, the 'Greater' and the 'less', and
contained the source of the Tigris. Arabia, the land of incense and perfumes,
of myrrh and cinnamon, of the phoenix and sardonyx, was also called Saba,
from the son of Chus. The Dead Sea, so named because it produced nothing
living, and received nothing from the race of living things, was in length
780 stadia and in breadth 150 [this attempt at measurement is a very unusual
feature on a medieval map, and shows a curious, if inaccurate, precision,
or spirit of inquiry (the figures that are given are twice too great). Beatus
also gives measurements, in Roman miles, for the islands of Britain, Corsica,
Sardinia and Taprobane.] India, containing many peoples and tongues, men
of dark color, great elephants and precious products, such as gems, ivory,
aromatics, ebony, cinnamon and pepper, was also famous for its parrots,
dragons and its one-horned beasts [rhinoceros]. It was amazingly fertile,
with crops twice a year; and among its gems were diamonds, pearls, burning
carbuncles, and beryls; it also possessed mountains stored with gold, and
guarded by dragons and monstrous men. Among its islands were Chryse [the
Malay Peninsula] and Argyre, the isles of gold and silver and Taprobane,
which lay far to the south, was divided by a river, was only in part inhabited
by men, had ten cities and was full of jewels and elephants. Ethiopia, stretching
to the borders of Egypt, abounded in races of diverse color and monstrous
form. It possessed multitudes of wild beasts and serpents, precious stones,
cinnamon and balsam. The Nile was said by some authors to rise far from
Mount Atlas, and thereafter to be speedily lost in the sands. But soon it
emerged from the desert, poured itself out into a vast lake, and thence
flowed to the Eastern Ocean, through Ethiopia. Here, again, bending to the
left, it descended upon upon Egypt .
Of these legends on the Beatus maps, most of them are to be found in the
writings of Isidore, but some have, ultimately, far more ancient origin.
Thus the notice of Parthia plainly refers to a time before the Persian revival
of 226 A.D.; while the dimensions of the Dead Sea and Lake Gennesaret, in
stadia, also prove a considerable antiquity, perhaps back to a source
at the time of Pliny. The legends referring to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus
correspond, in substance, with the descriptions of these areas found in
the writings of not only Pliny, but also Mela and Solinus; the measurements
of the greater islands (i.e., Britain), in Roman miles, seem to be reminiscent
of an imperial Itinerary.
A general stemma [genealogy] for the large Beatus maps which shows the lineage
of the extant Beatus manuscripts containing full-page maps is provided in
Harley's History of Cartography, Volume One (adapted from Klein).